COLLECTION 9: the Holiday Collection

Gift giving just got way more exciting with the new stamps and dies in the Collection 9 release!

Throughout the week, we have been sharing a variety of new product and lots of crafty inspiration for making your holidays the prettiest ever with our Make it Pretty: Holiday Collection.

This entire collection is filled with stamps and dies that make gift giving a true work of art. We LOVE to give gifts, receive gifts, open gifts, share gifts…you get the picture. This release is dedicated to gift giving. In each series, you will find so many useful options that will carry you well beyond the holiday season.

It’s what’s on the inside that really counts…but making it super pretty on the outside sets the stage for an awesome gifting experience. Take gift giving to the next level with fun sentiments, creative dies, and clever packaging.

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All Wrapped Up

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Have a gift but don’t know what to say? Let gifting sentiments do the talking. Whether birthday, holiday, or just because – these sentiments are perfect for all sorts of gift giving occasions.

We love the versatility in this sentiment set. You can dress up cards and packages for just about any event. Here we chose to create a fun, birthday themed card and favor.

We stamped the liner for the A4 Envie + Liner with confetti using the small, single dot images in the New Year Cheer stamp set. We repeated them again on the Mini Label Tag on the favor, and the sentiment was a perfect fit!

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Gift Card Inset Dies

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We are a huge fan of gift cards! They are a great gift when you’re in a hurry or for when you’d rather give the recipient the option to choose their own gift. But we’ve found that we didn’t always love the way you give gift cards, so we created this awesome die to add to our signature collection – the gift card inset.

Included in the die set are 3 different dies. Two of them may look the same but they have a slight bit of a difference, which does come in handy!

On the left you have an option to create a gift card opening in which the card will be slightly exposed for the recipient to see. On the right you have more of a hidden style gift card opening, which keeps gift cards neatly tucked away.

The 3rd die is for creating an insert…fun for iou’s, DIY coupons, or to write a special message.

One special feature of the Gift Card Inset Dies that you should notice, is that the only portion that actually cuts is the opening for the gift card. By having this unique feature, you can place a gift card opening almost anywhere!

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Gifted

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Gift cards are always a welcomed treat! Why not dress them up with a fun sentiment or a nice insert to state the amount of the gift.

When you open the card it reveals a neatly tucked away gift card and special message.

Are you thinking of all the fun ways you can use this die to create gift card holders?! It truly is a sleek way to dress up a simple gift card.

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File It: Kits

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In Collection 8 we introduced Crafitization – an awesome series of stamps and dies dedicated to bringing crafting and organizing together and this new set is a perfect addition just in time for the holidays.

The tag was created with a combination of the Partial Tag Die and the Wrappers Die. (And yes, we may need intervention…you just might see the partial tag die quite a bit – consider yourself warned, it’s definitely a CSS Fave!)

With the index stamp fitting nicely onto the wrapper tag, we filled in the space with a sweet tea cup icon from Rag Doll: Tea Partyand sentiments from the File It: Kits set.

At first glance Party Favor 15 looks like a pillow box…but it’s way better than just a pillow box.

Our signature design creates a front flap that tucks into the pillow box for a self closure to create a front-flap style pillow box. The flap can be a great place to add a sweet, hidden message, or dressed up with beautiful embellishments and more.

In fact, these fun favors are even Rag Doll approved direct from the North Pole! With just 39 more sleeps to go, Santa may find these favors as a go-to for stocking stuffers.

Alpha Tags

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Add an exciting element to gifting this year by including personalized tags. Choose from A-Z, 0 -31, a trendy ampersand, or use the blank tag to create your own tags with any of the 60 tags included in the Alpha Tags set of dies.

The holidays are notorious for countdowns, advent calendars, and the like. For this fun project we created for the nightly celebration of Hanukkah.

We stamped and assembled (8) Party Favor 15 boxes and die cut tags for the numbers 1 thru 8. We also die cut eight blank tags to layer behind the number tags so that the stamped design on the favors would not show through.

The favors were filled with some chocolate gelt (candy coins), and other small treats for the holiday.

The best part about the tags…they can also be used as stencils, you can use the cut outs as alphabet dies, you can make mini banners, and with the blank tag you can add any greetings or embellishments that will fit the space.

You truly get several different ways to use the tags beyond just a tag – another fun way to Make It Pretty this holiday!

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We hope you have enjoyed the Gift Giving Series.
Collection 9 is available for purchase [here]…

Thank you for joining us for the release, stay tuned for lots of fun happenings this month!

CSS DAILY DESIGNS: 25 Days of Inspiration

It’s been three years since the Clear and Simple Stamps Daily app first made an appearance on the crafting scene. Each day the app features a brand new project complete with instructions and photos. You can save to your favorites for quick reference, and search through previous months for even more inspiration.

In celebration of the CSS Daily App, we have shared “25 Days of inspiration” right here on the Clear and Simple Stamps blog! Each day the design team has featured fun projects and an added bonus project on the app – as a great way to see even more fab inspiration using your Clear and Simple Stamps.

Did you miss a day? No worries, you can see all the projects by visiting with us on Pinterest. Simply follow the Clear and Simple Stamps 25 Days of CSS board!

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25 Days Bonus Project: H-app-y Birthday

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Joining us today with a super clever bonus project is designer Jennifer Rzasa:

“My card today is inspired by Roy Lichtenstein’s “Explosion.” The Comic Book Series from CSS were just the perfect match for this project! I did a lot of die cutting for the explosion, and cut strips of yellow and red cardstock to go all around it. I love the added dot detail from the Comic stamp!

My app project today is a card inspired by a different piece of Lichtenstein’s artwork. I hope you check it out!”

Visit with Jennifer to learn more about her Roy Lichtenstein inspired project…

CSS DAILY DESIGNS: 25 Days of Inspiration

It’s been three years since the Clear and Simple Stamps Daily app first made an appearance on the crafting scene. Each day the app features a brand new project complete with instructions and photos. You can save to your favorites for quick reference, and search through previous months for even more inspiration.

In celebration of the CSS Daily App, we have 25 Days of inspiration. That’s right we are bringing the App to the blog! Each day the design team will feature fun projects and for an added bonus we will have a coordinating project on the app – it’s a great way to see even more fab inspiration using your Clear and Simple Stamps.

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F-app-ulous at 40

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Today’s project is brought to you by designer Tracy Schultz:

“I created a box from a template of my own that can hold A2 cards and is made from one sheet of Kraft Like a Rockstar cardstock. But for this special gift, tucked inside are 40 lottery tickets for the recipient to celebrate his big day!”

Visit with designer Tracy Schultz for more details on how to create a fabulous gift set for a milestone birthday…

CSS DAILY DESIGNS: 25 Days of Inspiration

It’s been three years since the Clear and Simple Stamps Daily app first made an appearance on the crafting scene. Each day the app features a brand new project complete with instructions and photos. You can save to your favorites for quick reference, and search through previous months for even more inspiration.

In celebration of the CSS Daily App, we have 25 Days of inspiration. That’s right we are bringing the App to the blog! Each day the design team will feature fun projects and for an added bonus we will have a coordinating project on the app – it’s a great way to see even more fab inspiration using your Clear and Simple Stamps.

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It’s a Cele-app-bration

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Today’s project is brought to you by designer Elena Roussakis:

“This quote by Julia Child is so quirky and fun! I paired the sentiment with an easy-to-recreate 3D cake, and a slice of something sweet for packaging the birthday girl’s gift.”

CSS DAILY DESIGNS: 25 Days of Inspiration

It’s been three years since the Clear and Simple Stamps Daily app first made an appearance on the crafting scene. Each day the app features a brand new project complete with instructions and photos. You can save to your favorites for quick reference, and search through previous months for even more inspiration.

In celebration of the CSS Daily App, we have 25 Days of inspiration. That’s right we are bringing the App to the blog! Each day the design team will feature fun projects and for an added bonus we will have a coordinating project on the app – it’s a great way to see even more fab inspiration using your Clear and Simple Stamps.

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Monster App-roved Birthday

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Today’s project is brought to you by designer Lori Tecler:

“I created a fun and colorful monster themed birthday ensemble perfect for a little boy. The ensemble includes a card and a matching gift bag with a tag–everything you need except a gift!”

Visit with designer Lori Tecler for details on her monsterous gift set.

Make a scene! We love to create fun scenes, especially with the new Rag Doll Series. With a little bit of simple masking Our Rag Doll Emma is bringing the party to you…

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Wish Big

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Masking is a classic technique, that is a great way to stretch your stamp sets. By having the ability to add on or take away parts of images you can create a variety of options.

We first stamped Rag Doll Emma: Banner in Perfect Little Black Dress ink, and stamped her again on a large sticky note. We trimmed the sticky note and adhered it on top of the stamped image. The balloons in the box were stamped next in Perfect Little Black Dress ink with the balloons slightly overlapping the rag doll image. Once stamped, we removed the sticky note and have one fluid image to color and create with for our card.

Wish Big Gallery

We’re going wild with our Copic Markers! Over the past year and a half, we have traveled across the country with Creating Keepsakes Magazine’s CK Convention teaching our Simply Copic classes. We are happy to announce that we are starting a new series on the blog modeled after our Simply Copic class series. From time to time, we will post fun tips and tutorials on creating with your Copic Markers right here on the Clear and Simple Stamps blog.

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Simply Copic: Cheetah Print

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For today’s fun project, we are talking animal prints. With a few simple strokes, you can transform any image by adding a fun pattern.

To create Rag Doll Willa’s adorable cheetah print dress, we have put together a step-by-step tutorial that will make you wild about adding fun details to your rag doll outfits.

From left to right in our diagram below, we follow the basic coloring principles for coloring in Willa’s dress.

And here is Rag Doll Willa all decked out in her trendy cheetah print dress, ready to celebrate and brighten someone’s special day!

To find more tutorials and watch our basic coloring video, visit our Simply Copic page. We will look to add more resources and PDF downloads throughout the year, so be sure to check back with us to see what is new…

What is a celebration without a little cake? And if you can’t be there in person, send a little slice of cake in the mail with your present…

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Eat Cake

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The All Occasions stamp set series is filled with fun sentiments and cute images that look great both colored or left uncolored. We chose A Clean Slate color story as the main pop of color to tie our card and Party Favor 5 gift ensemble together. And to finish it off, who could resist that inviting little Tags 1 tag that just begs your recipient to “open me”!

Download the CSS Daily Papercrafting App {2.0.1} available on iTunes

Don’t you love it when you discover a new way to use a set of stamps? Sometimes it can be as simple as changing up the colors you use or the embellishments you add to a project, that makes you look at a stamp set in a whole new way. Today we are creating his and her projects. We will start from the same basic tools and create a card with a masculine feel and one that has a feminine appeal…

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Group Project: Masculine/Feminine

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With each month, comes a fun new challenge that is presented to the design team. This month features projects that use the same elements to create a masculine and a feminine project. Join the design team as we share a few fun ideas incorporating great ways to use your sets for him or for her on your next project. We’ve included a full list of participating CSS designers:

His and Her:

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A simple CAS-style layout serves as the base for both cards. We love the new backgrounds, and chose to work with Lattice for our group project. We selected a masculine color palette of Slate and Gray for one card. And for our Feminine version we went with a brighter color scheme of Yellow and Pink.

Take a break from your taxes. With the hustle and bustle of tax day, we wanted to pop in and share a fun ensemble today…

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A Gift for You

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This cute little plane makes us think about the Peanuts character Snoopy in his Red Baron phase. How fun would it be to have a Red Baron party for kids? Here is a cute little Thank You card and Party Favor that would be a perfect fit.

We wanted to have a coordinated favor box, so we started by die cutting the Party Favor 2 from Dare to be a Diva Red cardstock. We then stamped the base with the adorable plane background bar in the Playroom stamp set. We absolutely love that you can create for both a boy or girl with these mix of stamps. And the best part is that each bar can build a repetitive pattern that is virtually seamless – LOVE that!

For the card, we went with a simple design that allowed the plane image from the Tiny Fashions stamp set to be the main focal point for the card. The sentiment was stamped on a curve in Perfect Little Black Dress ink. We masked off the sentiment with a small sticky note, and stamped the dashed line from the Onesie Decorating set. The cloud was die cut from the Spring set of dies and the plane image was stamped, colored, trim and adhered with dimensionals.

COLOR STORIES:

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Disclaimer

All printables and downloads shared are copyright Clear and Simple Stamps, LLC. You may download and use them for personal, non-commercial use only. Not for resale or distribution. You may share the free printables and downloads on your blog or other social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc) as long as credit is given and linked back to Clear and Simple Stamps, LLC and its original post.
(Note: Print results may vary depending on the type of printer and/or paper)